We have to take debts case by case, says ISABEL MORTON

BLANKET DEBT forgiveness or deal with our mortgage arrears problems on case-by-case basis – that was the subject for big debate over the past few weeks, after Prof Morgan Kelly of UCD raised the emotive subject.

We’ll change the term “debt forgiveness” to something more palatable and politically correct, because on the one hand it implies that all your debts will be paid off by some benevolent soul while you carry on living the high life and on the other, the term “forgiveness” is deemed to be insulting to those who are in debt and don’t believe they’ve done anything that requires forgiveness. They haven’t broken the law or committed a heinous crime; through circumstances (mostly beyond their control) they just don’t have enough money to service their loans. “Simple as”, as the new expression goes.

So how, precisely, do those who complain that debt forgiveness is unfair think this is going to work? Do they honestly believe the government or the banks will dish out goodie bags of cash to the chosen few, so they can toddle off happily into the sunset, without a care in the world? Although, given the way our bankers have been treated (bonuses and golden handshakes), you can hardly blame people for being somewhat suspicious.

Nevertheless, listening to RTÉ's Drivetimevox pop last Monday evening, in which they asked people their views on debt forgiveness, it became immediately apparent that most hadn't a clue what it meant but complained anyway on the presumption that they personally, wouldn't be on the receiving end of any handouts, and so, quite naturally, resented those that would.

Last week, I was working alongside somebody who went on at length about how he didn’t agree with any form of debt forgiveness and wasn’t prepared to pay for other people’s expensive mistakes nor to “suffer any more because of other people’s irresponsible and greedy behaviour”.

Which people, exactly, I enquired and what were their expensive mistakes?

“The ones who paid a fortune for extravagant homes and invested in all those buy-to-let schemes,” he replied, as if I’d been in hibernation for the past decade. I enquired whether he personally knew people who had been irresponsible and greedy and he raised his eyes to heaven and told me he knew “loads of examples of that type of person”, who now expected to be “bailed out by decent hard-working people, who never lived the high life”.

I encouraged him to tell me about these cavalier and extravagant people he knew, partly because I had a few hours to kill and thought the gossip would pass the time and might even be entertaining and (if I’m honest) partly because I hoped he might provide me with a snippet or two for this column.

What actually happened was that more than two hours later, he eventually admitted that he’d “missed the boat” himself, had made a few “errors of judgement” and “chickened out of a few opportunities”, as he hadn’t “the bottle”, as he put it.

He recounted individual stories of typical Celtic Tiger lifestyles and behaviour, but mild questioning revealed that the villains of the pieces were in fact doing little more than following the posse, and were not, given the sentiment at the time, behaving outrageously.

In fact, they were pretty much doing what everyone was doing, given half a chance: taking advantage of any opportunities that presented themselves. With the luxury of hindsight, they were made to sound like the irresponsible acts of an insane few but if you removed the dramatic emphasis placed on the large sums borrowed to invest in property and bank shares, the behaviours described sounded perfectly rational for the times in which we were then living.

After all, why would anybody of sound mind borrow to invest, unless they fully believed they would earn a healthy profit on their investment? Indeed, why would anyone lend to someone to invest, if they didn’t believe that they were going to get their money back with interest? The trouble is that now the former are at the mercy of the latter.

And, as my companion for the day admitted, he had a few schemes himself at the time, but either couldn’t afford to pursue them or backed out at the last moment.

Over our sandwiches, I asked him why, when he was one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been financially burnt, he was so aggressively against any form of debt forgiveness for those who had been? After a few seconds deliberation, he admitted that he was in fact, a bit resentful of those who had “taken the bull by the horns” when they could and had at least, “tried to make a go of things”. He had not and now he will never know how things might have worked out.

“Survivors guilt?” I suggested. He nodded silently, his mouth full of chicken sandwich. There’s no doubt but that things must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, as we all have our own unique set of problems.

Isabel Morton is a property consultant